Posted on 01/05/2006 10:00:25 AM PST by Feldkurat_Katz
From today on, not every baby born in this country will automatically be a New Zealand citizen.
Changes to the Citizenship Act mean there are tighter rules on children acquiring citizenship at birth.
It will only happen now if at least one of their parents is a New Zealand citizen or is entitled to be in New Zealand, the Cook Islands, Tokelau or Niue indefinitely.
The changes have been brought in to recognise the value of citizenship.
Registrar-General of Births, Deaths and Marriages, Brian Clarke, says very few babies born in New Zealand will be affected by the changes.
The Department of Internal Affairs says the changes have been brought in to ensure the benefits of citizenship only go to those with a genuine and ongoing link to the country.
Meanwhile there has been a call to speed up the process of acquiring the right to live in New Zealand permanently.
Dr Nagalingham Rasalingham of the Refugee Council says the new rule delays the citizenship process for asylum seekers, which can be a very stressful time.
He says he will be writing to the Immigration Service to get some pace to the process.
I think we should take a lesson from the Kiwis and Spuds.
When do we start doing this? Is there a petition I can sign?
Let's see. Russia has had a flat tax for sexeral years now. And the Irish and Kiwis have abolished birthright citizenship? Why are we always so far behind?
Too many demonrats?
Bring this to our shores. I like the criteria of one parent a citizen or a 100% legal DOCUMENTED immigrant.
Yep, I hope we're next!
Good call on their part and I think we should follow suit.
Our Congress doesn't have the guts to do this. They don't want to loose votes.
The Spuds.... Come on man... We saved Civilization and you refer to us as spuds....
"Let's see. Russia has had a flat tax for sexeral years now. And the Irish and Kiwis have abolished birthright citizenship? Why are we always so far behind?
Too many demonrats?"
Nope. Too many Republicans, and not enough conservatives.
Im proud to be a spud myself but not sure how "we" saved civilization.
Does the US have to wait for the example of others now? Whatever happened to the ones who signed the Declaration of Independence? Bred out of us?
You must not shame the humble potato! The lowly spud is worthy of great respect!
All bow before the greatest of tubers!
Cops investigate criminal matters. IF/ WHEN Congress ever gets around to making being here illegally a criminal matter instead of a civil matter with a prize inside, then maybe we can get somewhere. Plenty of things are illegal that are not crimes.
INS doesn't charge people, they deport people. For example,unless an illegal in MN is convicted of a felony, INS can care less to see or hear about an illegal.
Until our feds decide to do something, Pawlenty can't do much of what he wants.
The 1996 Immigration Reform Act made MPLS and similar city's "sanctuary" laws protecting illegal immigrants from any police questioning about their visa status illegal--- but it's never enforced by the feds.If it were, you'd see fines and sanctions against cities that do this BS.
IOW,I won't hold my breath.
Irish monks were so backwards that, in the dark ages, they did not get in on the book burning fad that was spreading like fire throughout Europe (ho ho ho, I crack myself up). Thus, they saved many great works of western civilization from destruction, just by being isolated and backwards, and when Europe realized its folly, the Irish had those books ferreted away and knowledge began to spread again.
Common sense rules.
what bugs me is that our political system seems to be less responsive than the Irish and Kiwi ones.
We need this really, really badly. I hate the idea that an illegal immigrant can stay here because they managed to have a baby here.
IANAL, so I'm not certain of which of these might win out:
One legal argument being made is that a constitutional amendment changing the 14th amendment is needed to accomplish this. I'd say this is extremely unlikely at best.
Another legal argument I've seen made is that the interpretation of the 14th amendment needs to be changed. I think a test case with a favorable Supreme Court ruling is a much more likely possibility.
I wasn't aware that Republicans had championed those causes.
They want tight votes?
it should be noted that ireland has experienced a massive level of immigration (legal + illegal) over the last 7 years, roughly equal to 10% of the 2000 popultion. This would be equal to 30mio immigrants into the US. We also have a rather generous welfare state, which is what most irish people feared many of these immigrants were seeking to exploit, and the driving reason for the referendum t change the citizenship laws. Also, Ireland had a very mono-ethnic make up until very recently, so there was a certain amount of fear-of-whats-different in evidence.
it should also be noted that Ireland was one of the few countries in the EU (with UK and Sweden) to allow unrestricted access to the populations of the newly ascended EU states (Poland, Czech etc).
Essentially the Irish position is that legal, documented immigration, that is not designed to be a welfare rip-off is considered very healthy both culturally and economically, and that genuine political/violence related asylum-based-refuge is also an important issue that the irish want to help with, though with caps and controls in place.
Not coming down on either side of the US immigration debate, just pointing out that there are some important differences and points that differentiate the Irish and US situations
They want tight votes?Doctors have a surgery for that.
Gee, Doya think?!
Don't hold your breath -- Amending the Constitution is a long and uncertain process.
I don't know where his people came from (planet RINO, I guess) but I would like to deport Lindsey Graham, for starters.
If there were a bunch of English speaking people who like "Monty Pyton and the Holy Grail" pouring in illegally, I do think it would be viewed differently. We'd be annoyed by it, still, but it would be different. We would more easily trust the English-speaking Monty Python-lovers, and we don't really trust the people coming in from Mexico. We think, probably rightfully, that they want to just use us and not to join us.
Sociologists from around the world do this survey called the World Values Survey-- to examine changes over time on attitudes about things in various societies. The proportion of people telling the mid-1990s World Values Survey that “Most people can be trusted” ranges from 65 percent of those surveyed in Norway to 3 percent of respondents in Brazil. The most trusting societies are some of the world’s most homogeneous (Sweden, China, and Finland follow Norway); if people are more likely to trust people perceived to be like themselves, it makes sense that in countries where there is effectively one cultural group trust will be high. “Cooperation depends on trust, and trust most easily springs from common values and culture,” wrote Harvard University Professor of Government Samuel Huntington. ... And given its diversity, the United States has an unexpectedly high score (35 percent).
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